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Deluge of Xan
Prelude State Security began a struggle with the Inquisition. This ‘Shadow War’ initially kept itself out of the public eye. It soon became too large to keep in the dark. Inquisitors recruited from the lower rungs of society, never revealing themselves directly. State Security responded with greater force until confused fighting on the street became a norm in many cities. As this reached a fever pitch, Kreisgrad was closed down. A single messenger made their way through the locked down city to deliver news. The west burned. The Great War Great armies of Shekami, western humans, and Fleshcrafted abominations had taken much of the peninsula. Dagger’s Point was captured and streams of displaced citizens fled from the onslaught. Those the invaders did not kill, they enslaved. The Autocracy began a desperate mobilization. During the apocalyptic conflict, a large portion of humanity perished. Starvation was rampant from the severed supply lines. Clever independent groups of humans stayed behind or penetrated the lines of war to gather information. A collective of Cursed with one mind, calling itself Xan had grown a massive army of created monstrosities which their foes called Deviants, friendly Shekami tribes, and humans. Nearly every citizen was pressed into the war effort. Parties of particularly skilled humans pressed into action and suffered atrocious casualties while whole armies were routed or butchered by Xan’s forces. A few successes held the line and as the seasons changed, the battle of Pleasant Fields saw the first major defeat of what is known as Xan’s Deluge, aided by a clever assassination by a party of five stragglers. Command and control disintegrated over the conflict. Though the enemy was now stuck in a winter stalemate, Xan themself departed to Kreisgrad to end the war. Thanks to a slave revolt in the north orchestrated by a small band of rebellious slave, Xan’s flying sphere crashed itself on the coast. Xan was now slowed enough to bring word to Kreisgrad. Armies trailed the flying sphere though its shadow pulsed with Cursed energies, transforming those below into strange abominations. Staying clear of the shadow, warning reached Kreisgrad. A final defense brought the Inquisition and State Security into alignment while the Society of Inquisitive Minds worked with displaced University students for an intellectual labor which they had learned weakened the Cursed and Deviants during the fall of Waidbach. Climax The sphere stopped for long enough by the efforts of students gathered on the hills outside Kreisgrad. Once the mighty capital had dedicated itself fully to the war, no one of true fighting age or merit remained. Defenders clothed themselves in Conscript attire, the same as their ancestors. A mass of brown jacketed defenders awaited Xan. The sphere’s arrival brought the trailing abominations along with allies struggling to catch up. In a climactic effort, great chains were latched to the sphere. It was boarded by defenders and the trailing forces, finally trickling into combat. Any further details melt in transcription. The sphere had crashed to the ground. Xan’s Deluge had ended. Since Xan’s defeat outside Kreisgrad, the calendars have not worked, no date can be recorded. History can only be organized, it will never again be precise. Aftermath Every fear of the future came true. War bands and nomadic former soldiers looted the countryside. Disease stalked the land. Whole regions of Kronland were mostly emptied of life aside from a precious few holdouts or hidden population. Ghost cities that had been spared the torch still stood. These abandoned locations were magnets for every bandit, Shekami, Cursed, and Deviant who wanted a place to hide. The Fleshcrafters seemed content to continue their blasphemies. No longer serving a master, they pathologically created abominations for their own sake. Kreisgrad saw a minor return of the former population after the victory over Xan. Their city was over half empty even with the influx, with whole sections cordoned off due to a myriad of dilapidated buildings and complexes housing all sorts of those who practiced degenerate arts. Orinia fared worse than their two northern neighbors, Shekami actively settled in their lush fields. Deviants were more active in the southern lands lead by the great Fleshcrafted general Gellan. Northern kingdoms scored some of the first victories in the Deluge. An ascendant House Delacroix had been shielded by virtue of being the furthest from the fighting. Their assistance in reclaiming land came at a heavy price, nearly every other northern House was forced to pledge service to them. When the Delacroix family arrived in Kreisgrad with their large delegation, their presence was tantamount to a coup. Never addressing the subject directly, ridiculously favorable terms were given to the Delacroix. As they left the city, the Kaiser locked himself in the citadel with his advisors. Though under the informal suzerainty of the Delacroix, the Kaiser issued his “Proclamation of the Eternal Autocracy”. His authority over the myriad armies had broken down in the wake of the Deluge. Disorganized rabble roamed the entire western half of the peninsula. Often, the only difference between these factions and gangs of bandits were their uniforms. A final effort to export the problem saw them sent beyond Dagger’s Point by order of the Autocrat. Eager to both gain land for themselves and not have to weaken their forces with internal strife, the former generals set out for the Frontiers. It became a golden age of mercenaries, attempting to wrestle the chaotic lands back into an orderly society. The Kaiser became the Autocrat, officially having Orinia as a vassal with the Duralian Kronlands as his directly administered land. Still under the yoke of the Delacroix and facing innumerable domestic problems, he worked to set his land right again. Multiple suspicious archive fires have destroyed much of what followed. Delacroix records that survived paint an ignoble picture of years of assassinations, arsons, mutiny, and a constant chaos from a variety of sources. Through the strife and internecine wars, the Autocratic States of Humanity reforged itself. The reins of government were eventually taken back and rule finally centralized to an extent. Exiled Legions became the Frontiers with the final Legion abandoning the ASH completely and becoming the Oblivionites. Technology moves forward, gunpowder has revolutionized both mining and warfare. Cannons and rockets are now common sights on the battlefield. Great dirigibles cross the sky above ever growing factories to support a constantly expanding population.